Ambassador Suites, Walker’s Point apartments OK’d
The building would include street-level retail space, a fitness center and a second-floor patio.
A new Walker’s Point apartment development and the conversion of a near west side school into a hotel both received Milwaukee Plan Commission approval Monday.
Work is to begin this summer on both the five-story, 86-unit apartment building, called The Yards, and the 23-suite Ambassador Suites hotel.
The Yards is being developed by Linden Street Partners on a vacant site west of S. 2nd St. and south of W. Oregon St.
It would be just northwest of The Quin, a five-story, 68-unit building that Linden Street Partners has under construction at 324 S. 2nd St.
The Yards, which gets its name from the neighboring Reed Street Yards business park, would feature high-end oneand two-bedroom apartments.
The building would include streetlevel retail space, a fitness center and a second-floor patio. It also would have 70 indoor parking spaces on the first floor.
“It’s a gorgeous building,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, a Plan Commission member. “Very nice design.”
The Ambassador Suites is being created at the former Wisconsin Avenue School, 2708 W. Wisconsin Ave., which developer Rick Wiegand bought last year from the city for $100,000.
Wiegand’s $15 million project includes a $500,000 environmental cleanup, which has already started. He plans to start renovations by late summer or early fall.
The suites will be “very high end,” said Wiegand, whose other neighborhood investments include the Ambassador Hotel, 2308 W. Wisconsin Ave.
The suites will be around 1,000 square feet, nearly triple the space of the Ambassador Hotel rooms, with full kitchens and other extended-stay features, he said.
The hotel will be just south of City Campus, three buildings that Wiegand plans to redevelop south of W. Wells St. between N. 27th and N. 28th streets.
Food and Beverage (FaB) Wisconsin, a food and beverage industry networking group, hopes to create a center of excellence with offices, a shared lab and a rooftop farm in the largest of those buildings.